UNESCO: Distancing from mother tongue affects us all

Director-General of United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Audrey Azoulay has stressed that distancing from the mother tongue affects us all, for linguistic diversity is a common good – adding that protection of linguistic diversity is everyone’s responsibility.

In a statement released on the occasion of International Mother Tongue Day, Azoulay said that every language has a certain rhythm, a certain way of approaching things, of thinking about them.

“Learning or forgetting a language is thus not merely about acquiring or losing a means of communication. It is about seeing an entire world either appear or fade away,” she had said.

Azuolay highlighted that four of ten students worldwide do not have access to education in the language they speak or understand best; as a result, the foundation of their learning being more fragile.

“From the very first day of school, many school children have the ambivalent experience of discovering one language – and the world of ideas which comes with it, and forgetting another one; the language they have known since infancy,” she had said.

Addressing how to protect linguistic diversity, Azoulay said that technology can provide new tools for protecting language diversity. In this regard, she pointed out that local dialects can be made a shared heritage via such tools.

Stressing that internet poses a risk of linguistic uniformization, Azoulay said that we should also be aware of the fact that technological progress will serve plurilingualism only as long as humans make the effort to ensure that it does. She added that designing of digital tools in several languages, supporting of media development and the access to connectivity needs to be done so people can discover different languages without giving up their respective mother tongues.

In concluding her speech, Azoulay called on everyone able to do so to defend linguistic and cultural diversity.